[NEohioPAL] Fourth Wall Productions DOUBLE Press Release

[Justin Tatum]

**********************************FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**********************************
 
DOUBLE PRESS RELEASE
FOURTH WALL PRODUCTIONS MOVES INTO OWN SPACE
                                                  &
FOURTH WALL PRODUCTIONS SECOND SEASON INFORMATION
 
 
 
 
Contact: Carli Taylor Miluk- Publicity Manager / Fourth Wall Productions
              440/864-0129 / Email:  carli at fourthwallproductions.com
 
FOURTH WALL PRODUCTIONS ACQUIRES A HOME
540 EAST 105TH ST IN CLEVELAND WILL HOUSE SECOND SEASON
 
(November 26th, 2007) Fourth Wall Productions who, in the past, has housed its shows on the Brooks Stage at the Cleveland Play House, and just recently wrapped up Malicious Bunny at Kalliope Stage- has signed the lease to house its Second Season at the Enterprise Center (540 East 105th Street) in Room 221.
 
The 2,100 square feet of space will not only serve as Fourth Wall’s black box theatre, but house their offices as well.  This will be Fourth Wall’s first home since they were created in 2005.  An exciting time, the permanent home will allow Fourth Wall to plan out the full season, with dates and times of all four shows, months in advance, and allow their audience members some relief in constantly trying to find (what the Free Times said) “Cleveland’s most peripatetic theatre group.”
 
ABOUT FOURTH WALL PRODUCTIONS
 
Fourth Wall Productions is one of Cleveland’s newest theatre companies whose main goal is to engage a younger audience into the wonderful world of theatre by using unpublished / unknown plays.  The Founding Members of Fourth Wall all went to Ohio University together and formed their company from the different departments the School of Theatre had to offer.  Putting together Ohio University and Cleveland-area talent, Fourth Wall’s goal is to continue to do a type of theatre that will connect with an audience in the 16-35 age range, yet will entertain an audience of all ages.  It’s through Fourth Wall’s introduction of theatre, and friendship with other regional theatres, that they hope to broaden theatre appreciation within the Cleveland community, and build upon Cleveland’s theatre reputation for new works.
 
 
HOW TO GET TO 540 EAST 105th STREET
At Fourth Wall, we are constantly trying to find a different way for our South West audience members to get to our space.  If you know of a better one- please, let us know.
 
FROM THE WEST SIDE-  
Take I-90 East to the Martin Luther King Exit (Exit 177)
Keep STRAIGHT onto Local Roads
Turn LEFT onto Martin Luther King Blvd
Bear RIGHT onto Lake Shore Blvd
Turn RIGHT onto Bratenahl Road
Bratenahl Turns into East 105th St.
540 East 105th Street will be on your Right
  
FROM THE EAST SIDE
Take I-90 West to the Eddy Rd. / Bratenahl Exit (Exit 178)
Turn RIGHT onto Eddy Road
Turn LEFT onto Lake Shore Blvd
Turn LEFT onto Bratenahl Road
Bratenahl Turns into East 105th St.
540 East 105th Street will be on your Right
 
FROM THE SOUTH-EAST SIDE
Take I-71 (which will turn into I-90)
Take I-90 East to the Martin Luther King Exit (Exit 177)
Keep STRAIGHT onto Local Roads
Turn LEFT onto Martin Luther King Blvd
Bear RIGHT onto Lake Shore Blvd
Turn RIGHT onto Bratenahl Road
Bratenahl Turns into East 105th St.
540 East 105th Street will be on your Right
 
FROM THE SOUTH-WEST SIDE
Take US-422 to Cleveland
Merge onto I-480
Take Exit 20A/20B, turn RIGHT onto Ramp (I-77/ Akron/ Cleveland)
Take Ramp onto I-77 to CLEVELAND
At Exit 162B, turn LEFT onto Ramp (I-90 / I-71 / Toledo / Erie, PA / E. 9th St)
Keep RIGHT to stay on Ramp ((I-90 / Erie, PA / East 9th St.)
Take Ramp onto I-90 (I-90 / Erie, PA)
Take I-90 East to the Martin Luther King Exit (Exit 177)
Keep STRAIGHT onto Local Roads
Turn LEFT onto Martin Luther King Blvd
Bear RIGHT onto Lake Shore Blvd
Turn RIGHT onto Bratenahl Road
Bratenahl Turns into East 105th St.
540 East 105th Street will be on your Right
 
 
 
 
FOURTH WALL PRODUCTIONS ANNOUNCES ITS SECOND SEASON
Cleveland’s Newest Theatre Company Introduces Cleveland to New Works
 
(October, 2007) Fourth Wall Productions is pleased to announce these four shows as its Second Season.  In the past, Fourth Wall has had three world premieres (Plans Change, Schism, and Malicious Bunny), one Ohio Premiere (Stained Glass Ugly), and a Cleveland Premiere of Babes in America.  
 
Fourth Wall now introduces Cleveland to a new play by Joseph Gallo- 2 Man Kidnapping Rule, a new play by a new playwright- David Allan’s Just Shy of Closure, another World Premiere by Fourth Wall’s Resident Playwright Matthew A. Sprosty- The Bank Guards, and is pleased to announce the production of Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead by Bert V. Royale, which had off-Broadway success.  Fourth Wall will update you on these shows as spaces and dates get established.
 
ABOUT 2 MAN KIDNAPPING RULE
 
2 Man Kidnapping Rule (Fall, 2007) has been said to be “a Chekovian look at male friendship.”  Just developed and seen for the first time at Ohio University’s Annual Playwright’s Festival where it came off with glowing remarks from the Head of the Playwriting Program- Charles Smith.  Fourth Wall Productions, in attendance of the festival, immediately approached Joseph Gallo in hopes to produce his work, and help him to form a production draft of the script.
 
The Story: 2 Man Kidnapping Rule is a play about one night in the lives of three men: Seth, Vincent, and Jack.  When Jack refuses to put away the memories that his ex-girlfriend left behind- his buddies force Jack to come out on the town with them.  Will Jack find a substitute for the girl who got away?  Or is this the beginning of a whole new set of problems?  
 
Gallo takes the audience through “hooking up” in the present world, to current male mindsets of masculinity and women, at an alarmingly honest and fast pace.  With witty dialogue that could come straight off an episode of “Entourage,” Fourth Wall found 2 Man to be a perfect addition to it’s arsenal in getting twenty-year old males into theatre. 
 
 
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
 
JOSEPH GALLO is a member of the Writers Group in New York and is the recipient of a GSS Original Work Grant and the 2006 Scott McPherson Award in Playwriting.  His play My Italy Story (Penguin Rep, TheatreWorks, Seton Hall University), which had its New York debut Off-Broadway at the 47th Street Theatre, and was nominated for the Gay Talese Literary Prize, was recently revived at 12 Miles West Theater in New Jersey.  His 10-minute play Star Song was a 2007 Kennedy Center ACTF regional finalist, finishing in second place, while his play Ya Gotta Believe! will be produced in June at Mile Square Theatre’s Seventh Inning Stretch Ten Minute Play Festival.  He wrote and directed the short films M*O*N*E*Y and No Parking and did the screenplay adaptation of Raymond Carver’s Careful, which debuted at the Los Angeles Short Film Festival.  He has worked extensively in development on both film and television projects, including a film chronicling the life of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and on the screenplay adaptation of the memoir Woody, Cisco & Me.  His original screenplays include My Italy Story and the pilot episode for the television series Gotham House.  Most recently he wrote the story Robert Zarinsky for Court-TV.  His work has additionally been seen on the stages of the Ohio Theatre, HERE, Circle Rep Lab, Pearl Theater, Samuel Beckett Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, 78th Street Theatre, Waterfront Ensemble, Atlantic Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, Delaware Stage Company, Seven Angels Theatre, Orlando Fringe Festival and the Hudson Guild Theatre in Los Angeles, amongst others.  His latest play – Warning: Adult Content – was recently given stage readings at both 12 Miles West and Manhattan Class Company, and will be produced at the Lark Theatre during the 2007-2008 Season.  This summer he will be working with Company Rindfleisch on drenched, a dance theater project in the Obie award-winning Ice Factory Festival at the Ohio Theatre in New York.  
 
 
ABOUT JUST SHY OF CLOSURE
 
David Allan’s Just Shy of Closure (Winter, 2008) is the first play from what Fourth Wall hopes is a budding playwright.  When Resident Playwright, Matthew  A. Sprosty, read a short story that David Allan wrote- he instantly felt Allan had a knack for writing dialogue.  Taking David to a couple of plays, getting him read “some of the greatest Contemporary pieces,” and instructing him along the way- Sprosty gave Allan enough direction to complete his own one-act play.  And what evolved- was Just Shy of Closure.
 
In Just Shy, David wondered why there were no great love stories set in the twenty-first century.  Also, he wanted to write a different kind of play where audience members didn’t have to turn off their cell phones before the show, because- “cell phone interruption is what it is all about.”  
The Story: On the night before Elizabeth heads back to Seattle to get married, her friend convinces her to go out and see her very first boyfriend, Ethan.  Ethan and Elizabeth have had a secret crush on each other for fourteen years, never saying anything because they were too shy to.  But, on this night, Elizabeth’s friend will almost get raped by a date, and Ethan’s friend will get himself in trouble with the law by accidentally kidnapping someone.  As Ethan and Elizabeth try and get their true feelings on the table, they are constantly interrupted by their cell phones.  Which asks the question- in the twenty-first century, is there such the thing anymore as a “private life”?
 
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
 
DAVID ALLAN graduated from Ohio University in the Spring of 2004, with a Bachelors in Creative Writing.  After college, he came up to Cleveland to work “bill-paying” day jobs, while writing for websites to keep his imagination flowing.  His own stories were only finding themselves in his MySpace blog.  He stumbled upon Fourth Wall Productions when one of his friends took him to see All the Way from China (Spring Production,) and went out with the cast and crew after.  Amazed at how warm and “hip” Fourth Wall did theatre, David found an instant attraction to it, and after letting Sprosty read a short story- the Resident Playwright took an interest in helping David write a play.  David Allan would like to thank Fourth Wall for sacrificing their time to do readings for him, and letting him hear his play, making sure it had a “clock.”  
 
Fourth Wall is hoping to help David Allan with future plays.
 
 
ABOUT THE BANK GUARDS
 
(Spring, 2008) Since Sprosty came to Cleveland, two of his shows (Plans Change, Schsim) were through-and-through comedies.  Knowing he would eventually try a drama on the Cleveland audience, Sprosty wrote Malicious Bunny (a dark comedy) so that the switch from comedy to drama wasn’t as out-of-the-blue.  Also, all three plays were reviewed as having very natural dialogue.  As Vanessa Lange in WestLife said: “[the audience has] the feeling of being apart of an intimate conversation between close friends” (on Plans Change.)  So, Sprosty set out to write a play where the audience felt like they were listening in on the planning of a bank robbery.  Using his own experiences of robbing a bank in college (to help the Athens Police train the bank employees,) Sprosty wrote his first post-college drama.  Fourth Wall is excited to announce Matthew A. Sprosty’s The Bank Guards, set for the Spring of 2008.
 
The Story: The Bank Guards is a play about five security guards posted at the fictional bank “Cleveland Federal.”  Corrupted, and convinced, that they deserve more compensation than their twenty-seven thousand dollar paychecks to protect the wealthiest of Cleveland’s money- they decide to rob the bank.  The Bank Guards is set the night before the robbery where they come together to finalize their plans.  Unfortunately, they’re about to realize that sometimes the best laid plans fall flat.  And when two of the guards kidnap a bank robber to help them, most the guys wonder if they will even make it into the morning alive.     
 
 
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
 
MATTHEW A. SPROSTY was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.  Matthew helped initiate the Ohio University’s Undergraduate Playwrights Ten-Minute Play Festival to showcase the writing skills of the School of Theatre’s undergraduate talent.  Also, Matthew’s first full length, Ganareys’ 101 (which had a reading in Atlanta, GA before Sprosty graduated,) was one of the first school-sanctioned productions of an undergraduate playwright’s full-length play at Ohio University.  After that, Sprosty paired up with director Rebecca Cole again for the full length All’s Fair, where on closing night- they had to turn away half the theatre-goers due to an already full house.    Graduating from Ohio University’s Playwriting Program with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in the Spring of 2004, Sprosty returned to Cleveland with Tatum and Smith to start the groundwork of Fourth Wall Productions.  
 
Fourth Wall Productions has produced three shows of Sprosty’s (Schism, Plans Change, and Malicious Bunny) where he received write-ups such as: “Sprosty has a gift for dialogue that keeps the audience entertained and engaged…  [gives] the feeling of being apart of an intimate conversation between close friends, rather than listening to actors on a stage.” –Vanessa Lange, WestLife, on Plans Change.  “It’s been awhile since I’ve had such a good time at a theatre production.  The twists, turns, and ‘oh-my-goodness’ moments in ‘Malicious Bunny’ keep the audience laughing and thinking of what’s going to happen next.  Bravo!” –Roy Berko.  “Sprosty is a writer to watch – his ear for the rhythms of dudedom is impeccable.” – Linda Eisenstein, CoolCleveland.com “It truly was one of the… best written shows I’ve seen [in Cleveland]” Lincoln King-Cliby, NeoPal, on Schism. 
 
He has also had two ten-minutes produced at Ohio University- The Nightcap, and No Apologies.  
 
 
ABOUT DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD
 
(Summer, 2008) Last year, Fourth Wall asked its New York and Chicago friends to keep their eyes open for plays making waves in the cities.  In April, a friend came back to Cleveland with a copy of Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead by Bert V. Royal, which Fourth Wall immediately took a liking to.  Going out of our comfort zone by dealing with a published play, we felt Cleveland needed to see this play, and who better to gather a cast of twenty-something actors then a twenty-something theatre company?
 
The Story: When CB’s dog dies from rabies, CB begins to question the existence of an afterlife. His best friend is too burnt out to provide any coherent speculation; his sister has gone goth; his ex-girlfriend has recently been institutionalized; and his other friends are too inebriated to give him any sort of solace. But a chance meeting with an artistic kid, the target of this group’s bullying, offers CB a peace of mind and sets in motion a friendship that will push teen angst to the very limits. Drug use, suicide, eating disorders, teen violence, rebellion and sexual identity collide and careen toward an ending that’s both haunting and hopeful.
 
Reviews that Dog Sees God received: “Good grief! The Peanuts kids have finally come out of their shells.” —Time Out. “A welcome antidote to the notion that the Peanuts gang provides merely a slice of American cuteness.” —NY Times. “…easily identifiable with the Peanuts crowd yet with a distinctly ‘Royal’ touch…The way Royal builds on the foundation of Charles Schulz’s iconic comic strip actually results in a parody that’s also a stand-alone play apt to resonate even with anyone belonging to that small population segment unfamiliar with Peanuts.” —CurtainUp. “Inventive and raunchy…hysterically funny.” —NY Post. “Bert V. Royal is the playwright of the Off-Broadway show DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD and is he ready to confess all!” —Broadway.com. “DOG SEES GOD doesn’t feel like the same old high-school-warfare schlock. The characters—teenage and reckless—are both genuinely sympathetic and unquestionably cruel. Growing more hysterical — and more harrowing — as it flows to an inevitable, uncomfortable end, this taut comedy manages to make tired clichés about stoners and popular homecoming airheads funny and endearing.” —NY Magazine.
 
Awards: In 2004, it was one of the breakout hits at the New York International Fringe Festival, winning the Excellence Award for Best Overall Production, as well as Theatermania's Play Award of 2004, the GLAAD Media Award for Best Off-Off-Broadway production, Broadway.com's 2006 Audience Award for Favorite Off-Broadway Production and the 2006 HX Award for Best Play.ience Award for Favorite Off-Broadway Production and the 2006 HX Award for Best Play.
 
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Bert V. Royal was an associate and assistant casting director for many years and has helped to cast such shows as the recent Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and the off-Broadway revival of Miss Evers' Boys.  He quit his profession as a casting director to write the play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead' which was awarded the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival Overall Excellence Award, as well as the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Off-Off Broadway Production.  He is from Green Cove Springs, Florida. He has two siblings, Ashley Halil and Boyce Royal - both are also writers.  Won the Clay County Spelling Bee in 6th Grade only to lose a shot at Nationals by misspelling a ridiculously easy word that he will never misspell again as long as he lives - 'Buccaneer.’  He currently lives in West Hollywood with his partner, Clay.  
 
Recently, he finished his first screenplay Parents on Strike! and currently adapting Michael Stadther's bestselling children's book A Treasure's Trove, both for Paramount Pictures.
 
Bert started File 14 Productions with his best friend - actress/producer Sorrel Tomlinson.
Justin TatumFourth Wall Productions
 
 
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